Marconi Beam Primary
Location: Marconi Beam
Status: Built
The school was built on a tight budget set by the provincial Public Works Department. This limited the room for expression through choice of materials. Working to these minimum norms, it was decided to lay out the school in the shape a hand with the classroom blocks as the fingers and thumb and the administration blocks as the palm. The hand may also be seen as emblematic of the activities of learning, and it is appropriate that it recurs throughout the school as a decorative motif.
The emblem of the hand is further expressed as hand work, evident in patterned mosaic tile panels made of broken or rejected tiles, which are used extensively on walls or as floor border. This work was done by local residents who were given some training and so could participate in the making of the school.
